Speech: Steven Williams Remarks for
Mississippi State University Department of Landscape Architecture

May 5, 2003

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here today to congratulate you on this remarkable achievement. Your new teaching and research facility is not only an awe-inspiring sight; it exemplifies the University’s commitment to sustainable and progressive thinking.

As Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I am encouraged and delighted by this great example: it shows me that construction and conservation are not mutually exclusive. In many ways, the minds that helped put this structure up – the architects – are empowered with more than just the tools of their craft. Architecture, as you all know, often blends traditional elements of art and engineering to meet the needs of modern times; and its creations usually remain long after their creators perish. In that sense, today’s architects carry with them the blueprints of what our future landscape could look like.

This is quite a charge considering the amount and scale of some of the ecological challenges we now face. Your Department of Landscape Architecture’s website says that, “ ... Design and management of human landscapes in a sustainable manner is timely and essential because of evolving conditions that are significant problems for humankind.”

That’s why we see that one of the facility’s many great characteristics is that its surrounding landscape will be managed to remain consistent with the site’s natural plant communities and cycles. It reminds me of our recently constructed National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. Known as the ‘home’ of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the NCTC was carefully designed to blend with the landscape, to match the homegrown style of West Virginia farm country, and most importantly, to be durable and sustainable so that in 150 years, our conservation descendants will be just as proud to call it home as we are today. Both facilities, NCTC and yours here, will be used for educational purposes; but in so many ways, the buildings themselves are important lessons.

When you come here, take notice of the plants that make up the surrounding landscape; they may seem like a minor part of the complex, but they are really much more important than you may initially think.

One of our biggest concerns at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the spread of invasive species, which includes a vast array of plants. While farmers have always fought a battle with weeds in crops, invasion of weed-free lands has increased exponentially in recent decades. While most non-native organisms are not harmful, a fraction can cause enormous economic and ecological damage. Because they often look no different than native plants, non-native plants can wreak havoc before they’re even detected. In recent years, the silent invasion has alarmed scientists worldwide and prompted federal agencies to work together to address the problem.

Invasive plants interfere with recreational activities in parks, refuges, forests, grasslands, and other natural areas and pose serious hazards to native species in natural areas. This is a long-term threat to biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and the balance of nature on which all species depend. Preventative techniques and environmentally sound approaches – such as those demonstrated so impressively here – are crucial.

Early control is also a necessary prerequisite in the battle against invasive plants. Sometimes, even the most innocuous of plants, sold at the local nursery, can quickly become an ecological nightmare. Here in Mississippi, one of the more high-profile threats is an aquatic plant called Giant Salvinia, originally from Brazil and introduced here as an ornamental plant for the water garden trade.

It may have once been pretty in an aquarium but now Giant Salvinia is a real menace to the health of waterways here and the species that depend on them. It’s been called an aquatic kudzu. It blankets an entire pond in days, choking everything underneath, trapping and drowning mammals that try to walk on what looks like a field. Ducks can't land on it. And if your business depends on free, open water --- forget it. You can see then how such a presence is attended by both ecological and economic impacts.

Unfortunately, Giant Salvinia is only one of over 6,300 non-native plant and animal species already wreaking havoc in the country today with new invasions occurring on a weekly basis, according to one of our recent reports.

One reason the problem of invasive plants is so widespread is the way they spread, grow and adapt. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have enabled the spread of plants; but the scope of our influence has never been so large as it is today, and you can see how dramatically it has grown in just the last century. In pioneer days, exotic seeds traveled slowly and deliberately across the continent as freight in covered wagons to be planted as ornamentals or as cost-efficient forage for livestock. Today, non-native seeds can cris-cross the country at 75 miles per hour in muddy tire tracks and can establish themselves at the next interstate rest stop; or they can be brought unwittingly in freight shipments from overseas.

Technology and globalization has made the world smaller in more than one way, which is why it so important to keep native ecosystems healthy. At first you might think, “what’s wrong with having as many species as possible? The more, the merrier. Isn’t that what biodiversity is all about?” But non-native plants do not simply blend harmoniously into native ecosystems. As you can see with Giant Salvinia, they destroy native ecosystems, and have a tendency to monopolize landscapes because, in their new territories, they have a distinct advantage over the native plants. Freed from the diseases, insects, and other controls found in their native habitats, these plants use their energy to grow larger and faster; to put down deeper roots; and to produce more seeds. Uncontrolled, they quickly out-compete and replace native plants.

Invasive species and their damage have been called the most irreversible form of pollution. These plants already infest well over 100 million acres and continue to increase rapidly, causing billions of dollars in lost revenue and control costs. Cornell University reports that exotic species, both plants and animals, on land and water cost the U.S. up to $138 billion annually, representing impacts on human health, commercial activities, community infrastructures, and natural resources.

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face in combating the spread of invasive plants is an uninformed public. In many ways, the Service must rely on cooperation from the public, and on the examples set by leaders like yourselves, who help keep the public informed on sustainable landscaping. It’s all too easy for one non-native plant growing in someone’s backyard to spread and infest massive areas of land, even those that have been specifically set aside for the protection of native plants and wildlife.

As for public wild lands, 4,600 acres are lost each day to invasive weeds, according to the Interagency Committee for Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds. Much of this land will never be recovered. If invasions are allowed to spread, wildlife populations will decrease proportionately and some plant species are likely to become extinct. Non-indigenous species are at least in part responsible for more than 42 percent of the plants and animals currently on the nation’s threatened and endangered species list. You can see the correlation between non-native species, economic cost, and environmental damage, including the listing of threatened and endangered species.

In the long run, the presence of endangered and threatened species is an important indication to our own species: we should be looking beyond temporary solutions to existing problems. We should be exploring alternative means to achieve sustainable ends. That’s why your help is so invaluable: you can build ideas in very tangible ways that will influence future thinking. For this new facility, I congratulate and commend you.

I believe that in architecture, as in conservation, our most noble work comes when we ‘build’ with an eye to future generations, not simply for our use today. History is always in the making, as they say, but there is something in this ideal – when it stands solidly before you as does this facility – that signifies the beginning of a new chapter, or at least the turning of a page.

Next week I’ll be back in Washington, DC, a city where perhaps every other building is an important piece of American history. Its creations all tell stories of the times during which they were constructed. This building is no exception, and what it says to the people who study and teach here in the future will certainly speak volumes. In a time when the conservation of our natural resources is of such urgency, this structure will stand as a testament to your progressive will.

Thank you